Rsc

2005-11-17T19:56:00.000+01:00

Targeting teenagers

It's well known that propaganda makers (either institutional or commercial) often target children and teenagers as they are easier to convince and they tend to keep the ideas they have assimilated while young all over their life. It's also true that we usually associate the word 'propaganda' with communist regimes, though most countries, either commies or not, use it.

Ethan Persoff has compiled some American comics writen with different purposes, for example keeping teenagers away from drugs
or making them support the invasion of Grenada.

Via: El blog ausente

[Escuchando: drop it on me (ft daddy yankee - ricky martin - life (3:54)]

2005-11-17T18:36:00.000+01:00

Roll, roll down the hill

A racing 3D flash game. Kinda difficult, kinda nice.

[Escuchando: Are U Comin' - Moodorama - (5:28)]

2005-11-17T03:58:00.000+01:00

Admitance after denial (or the nth Iraq tale)

Saint Peter denied knowing Jesus three times, the USA denied several times the use of white phosphorous bombs (napalm like devices) in the raid for Fallujah but has been finally forced to admit they employed this chemical weaponry.

Sometimes we know the truth only when witnesses and proofs are too evident to be hidden, and this is the case.

Take a look at the video that started everything: here.

Previously discussed here

[Escuchando: Lo Que Me Gusta A Mi - Juanes - Mi Sangre (3:30)]

2005-11-15T06:41:00.000+01:00

Spacecraft's pocket guide

So you want to be an astronaut? Then this might be useful for you: Ariane 5 User's Manual.

Ariane 5 is the ESA's (European Space Agency) most advanced launcher, until 2007 at least when Vega is planned to make its first launch, and is also the launcher that can put the highest payload in orbit, 6 tonnes.

~ I suppose it's not the only user manual as my car's one has almost the same amount of pages.

[Escuchando: Hung Up - Madonna - Confessions On A Dance Floor (5:37)]

2005-11-14T19:52:00.000+01:00

Making grotesque beautiful

That's what Jan Saudek does. The galleries could be NSFW though they are not sex explicit, but what it's important is that they are great.

[Escuchando: Off The Wall, November 1, 2005 - Emmanuel Goldstein - (1:02:08)]

Free .be domains

2005-11-11T13:34:00.000+01:00

I just want to point all of you that you can now access this weblog using the following url:
http://rsc112.be

Anyone who wants to get a free .be (Belgium) domain can check for it's availability and acquire it completely free in any of these providers:

http://www.eurodns.com
http://e3internet.ru
http://www.e3internet.com/domain-registration/conditions/register-be

*Maximun 10 domains per human being :)

2005-11-08T16:14:00.000+01:00

Oops, they did it again

No, it's not the new Britney Spear's song. If the information RAI News, the public Italian TV channel, is correct the USA would have used chemical weapons during the Fallujah raid.

The USA army supposedly used the white phosphorous bomb named MK77-5

It's not the first time we hear news about the use of napalm in Iraq March/2003, August/2003 or March/2005.
--
View or download the video: here (either in English or Italian).
Full article: here.

2005-11-08T12:11:00.000+01:00

France is burning, vive la France!

Almost six thousand cars torched, hundreds of people arrested, buildings and schools burned down and having this riots spreading across France tell us one thing: the French model of an illustrated society has collapsed.

A lot of European countries (Belgium, Germany, Spain, Italy, ...) usually took France as a reference in how to handle inmigration, this situation, which was predicted by several people like Polanyi, and now they are witnessing the situation in France without hiding their fear of the revolts crossing the unexistant borders.

Images
Full story

Hundreds of inmigrants left to die in the middle of the Sahara desert

2005-10-07T22:48:00.000+02:00

As most of the readers are overseas won't probably heared about the massive tryings of sub-saharan inmigrants to cross the fences that stand as borders of the Spanish' colonies of Ceuta and Melilla using homemade stairs in a XV century-like assault to a fortress.

Those who were arrested by the Moroccan police were inmediately being deported to the near town Oujda, in Algeria, were they found their way to cure their wounds (sometimes as results of the jump over a 6 meters fence with barbedwire and several times inflicted by the always agressive Moroccan police), recover some strength and try again to jump the fences that separate the two Spanish, ergo European, colonies from Morocco.

Things seem to have changed now that Spain and Morocco have signed a treaty that allows the first country to inmediately deport all the inmigrants that are arrested just after the jump into Spanish territory. Some non governmental/non proffit organizations like Doctors Without Borders (MSF) denounce that hundreds of inmigrants have been left to die in the middle of the Sahara desert without food and water by the Moroccan forces.

Hang on as I'll be updating the news concerning this subject.

Click here to read the news in English.

Click here for a video stream showing one of the assaults.

Click here to hear the interview (Spanish only, sorry) of a MSF head talking about the subject.
Here you can find a video covering the news.

~ Imagining a caravan of trucks full of these inmigrants reminds me to the nazi trains full of jews heading death camps. The problem is that I bet nobody will remember this humanitarian crime in a few years (just the same way people seem to have forgotten the rest of the ethnic groups who were massacred in the holocaust like gypsies, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Estonians, ...).

~ I wonder if Spain should be accused of breaking the UN Convention Against Torture treaty for deporting all these inmigrants to a country that is known for using extreme violence against its own citizens and inmigrants on their soil.

What do you need to become a F1 World Champion

2005-09-26T18:31:00.000+02:00

1.- It's important to take a vision test.

2005-09-13T17:32:00.000+02:00

Another time wasting tool for politicians?

Spanish politicians have finished their holidays today and they have been welcomed to the Congress of Deputees by a shiny 15'' TFT screen showing a personalized Windows XP desktop.

It is supposed to help them read/write transcripts, have remote assistance from their team and gather instant information about whatever is being discussed in the Congress and I'm pretty sure they will have hard policies implemented, but after seeing it I have some questions flying around my head:
- How long will it take until a journalist takes and publish a pic of a deputee playing some kind of videogame or surfing sex sites?
-How long will it take until we see these computers infected by some kind of malware?
- Will they use it's idle processor time to contribute to any of the distributed computing projects that are around there (SETi, Folding@Home, ClimatePrediction, ...)?

Time will tell us.

Click on the pic if you want to see the terminal in detail

2005-09-13T01:13:00.000+02:00

When rumble cannot hide beauty

Great photographs but... does showing nude top models in rumble scenarios like those help gathering funds for Greenpeace?

Anyways, click on the pic to surf to Feromono's gallery of this Greenpeace campaign. The models are Verónica Blume, Martina Klein, Nieves Alvarez, Esther Cañadas, Almudena Fernández, Vanessa Lorenzo, Vanessa Vasbert, Estefanía Luyk and Laura Sánchez among others.

2005-09-12T23:45:00.000+02:00

Date 9/11/2001 - Location: Baghdad, Iraq

- “How long do you think before they bomb us?”
- “But it wasn’t us. It can’t be us…” I rationalized.
- “It doesn’t matter. It’s all they need.”

And it was true. It began with Afghanistan and then it was Iraq.

Four years later and the War on Terror (or is it the War of Terror?) has been won:
Score:
Al-Qaeda – 3,000
America – 100,000+

Congratulations!

This is a rip-off the story I have just read at Baghdad Burning. Follow the link to read the full story as I'm sure it will make you think.

2005-09-10T17:33:00.000+02:00

With or without quotation marks?

It's your choice.

Via: Escolar

2005-09-09T18:15:00.000+02:00

Spots, lines, ... do you have anything you want to get rod of your pics? Give a try to Glenn C.Feron's make-up service.
Satisfaction guaranteed.

2005-09-08T14:10:00.000+02:00

Security != --Liberties

There are hundres of thing Europe can and should copy from the USA, but trading liberties and cutting down fundamental rights for more security is definitely not one of them.

It's clear that we must do whatever is in our hands to, using Clarke's own words, "defend our values of respect of tolerance of freedom and democracy against any who wish to destroy or replace them with some other doctrine, particularly if they seek to use violence to promote their ambition", but deportation laws like the ones he wants to be approved or the retention of all-type communications is not a good way of defending them.

Some politicians don't seem to understand that human rights apply to everybody, including terrorists, and that, as the graffiti in the pic says "life is freedom", and there's no life without it.

More info: Yahoo News
Via: The Register
Photograph Via: The noise of a marginal life
Also published at: Spitting-Image

FATx/NTFS is dead, hello WinFS

2005-09-05T11:41:00.000+02:00

Microsoft has made available Windows Future System (WinFS) beta through msdn (80'2MB), the new Windows filesystem is intended to be introduced with the recently named Windows Vista.

At first glance it wil allow upgrade the previous file systems bringing a better handling of structured and unstructured data, allowing symbolic links, removing the 26 drives limitation, ... However there are several comments that point that it makes almost impossible the coexistance of different operating systems in the same volume.

This beta is focused to developers, who will be able to use its unified Item Data Model across applications, present new relational organization constructs for data, and create applications that exploit data more powerfully. WinFS is a development platform that will improve developer productivity and reduce organizations' time to market. It requires Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2 (SP2) installed. WinFS Beta 1 will install on other editions of Windows XP such as Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition, but is only supported on Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home Edition though it only provides local access if installed in home ed .

You can watch a 58 minute video with a WinFS demonstration at Channel9.

2005-09-02T13:38:00.000+02:00

So far, so near
Although I've been reading and watching the news about Katrina's hurricane, I had the movie-like image the news are showing (aerial photographs, military and police trucks and helicopters rescuing people, ...) and I didn't realize how bad were thing going there.... until a few hours ago.

I got a phone call from a friend who was "stored" (that's the word he used) without protection, water, food or medical services in a convention center with some other thousands of people. We couldn't talk me a lot in the 1'23'' the call lasted, but it allowed me to see what's happening there under another perspective.

After the call I digged the network for more information but I was kinda surprised of the lack of information and the few news sources I could find considering this catastrophe is happening in a First World country like the USA. I don't believe news agencies don't have interest or money to cover this news so I have to ask myself if they are using some kind of selfcensorship like they did on 9-11.

Sometimes a call can force you to open your eyes and see what it's really happening out there.

Flickr gallery of the disaster - here.
Also published: here

2005-06-24T02:17:00.000+02:00

Everything you wanted to know about flies but you never dare to ask

CSIRO Entomology hosts an online Anatomical Atlas of Australian flies. Really didcatic.

Via: Gordon.Coale

2005-06-23T06:27:00.000+02:00

When torture is an inspiration

Artists are sensible by definition as they have to express their feelings in their artwork, that's why every disturbing event can become a source of inspiration, the seed they will make a piece of art.

When Fernando Botero saw the AbuGhraib episodes of torture he was so impressed that he began to paint the scenes in his particular World.

He has not be the first nor the only one to reproduce the abuses in their works:
Sculpture by Abdul Karim Khalil
Colectivo El Perro "Democracia 05"
...

2005-06-22T02:19:00.000+02:00

So you are a wanabee doctor?

Either you are interested in medicine or not you can try to answer NCEMI's weekly cases.
Each one provides a hint and the correct answer, see how many can you guess.

X-Ray test

Photographic test

EKG test (by far the most difficult of all for non initiated)

2005-05-26T04:57:00.000+02:00

Don't dry clean your clothes with gasoline!!

According to this movie, using flammable liquids for dry cleaning was a quite common back in the 30s.

[Escuchando: Lija y terciopelo - Marea - La patera (4:36)]

2005-05-04T09:46:00.000+02:00

Tips to know a web can be a scam

Imagine a website announced in Google-ads (something that gives a false sense of confidence in some people) that sells Joh Paul II memorial gifts like a T-shirt and a bracelet. You might avoid the fact that the website seems to have been made in less than five minutes and you might want to buy one of those precious items and wait 4-6 weeks for delivery 'Due to the high demand for this bracelet' but just one second before pressing the Add to Cart button you see a pic the catches your attention:

There's a pic of the Pope wearing a Durex t-shirt!!!!

It seems these guys have made a search in Google images for JPII pics and they took the first that came out.

Kinda lame, isn't it?

[Escuchando: Leave me alone - Natalie Imbruglia - (4:21)]

Dark humour

2005-05-02T19:56:00.000+02:00

Sometimes there's no better way of understanding the magnitude of horror than trying to find something humorous in it.

The article concerning the destruction of Guernika in The Onion cover dated at April 30, 1937 is the best example.

2005-04-19T18:05:00.000+02:00

Habemus papam

We don't know who's him yet, the only thing we know is that the Holly Spirit needed 4 votings to get from Heaven to the Earth (I thought pigeons were able to fly faster).

Edit: You can see the White Smoke in this ram file hosted by the Vatican TV.
Edit2: It's incredible hearing all the bells in the town ringing at the same time.

Edit3: The new Pope is Ratzinger (Benedict XVI). The sword of the dogma has killed the Spirit of evolution in the Church.

2005-04-19T17:54:00.000+02:00

First Spanish Radio Podcasting

Cadenaser is the first radio station in Spain, not only because it has much more listeners than all its competitors, but for being the first Spanish station that has begun to broadcast its shows using podcast.
They already had the shows online on their website, but now it's easier to download and collect them using our podfeeder.

These are the feeds in rss and rdf.

Searcher he outcome justified the search

2005-04-15T02:38:00.000+02:00

Stupid things to buy

Would you spend $19 in a hard plastic cover for your keyboard instead of locking your desktop spending $0?

2005-04-15T00:58:00.000+02:00

Reasons for NOT to lend your Zen or iPod to anybody
It's incredible the mess that can be done in less than a day:
- Fingertips in the screen
- Scratches all around the body
- 8.6GB of hard to find music lost
- All lists lost
- All non-music data lost
- Equalizer disconfigured
- Clock disconfigured
- (this slot is reserved for other problems I haven't found yet)

And all this only because he wanted to bring home a couple porn movies.

[Escuchando: One more addiction - Natalie Imbruglia - (3:30)]

2005-04-13T16:06:00.000+02:00

The eyes speak better than words sometimes

USA Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld stares at the recently elected Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, during his unexpected visit to the country
Photo: Hadi Mizban. AP

2005-04-13T12:08:00.000+02:00

Gmail in Spanish
Though some features are still missing (spell checker for example) Google has translated their Gmail service to local languages like Spanish.
Shortcut keys remain the same in every language.
Change your language in the settings tab of Gmail if you want to browse it in your language.

2005-04-13T03:45:00.000+02:00

Free Kaspersky online antivirus

It's good news to hear that one of the best antivirus engines out there will offer free online scans as a service.
It's still in beta development but looks definitely great.

2005-04-12T02:14:00.000+02:00

Hell money

No words, it's worth reading the whole story.

[Escuchando: Off The Wall, April 5, 2005 - Emmanuel Goldstein - (0:-1)]

2005-04-08T16:09:00.000+02:00

Silicone bands madness

In this capitalist World we live in it seems it's fair to use every event to sell our ideas or, simply, earn some bucks.

JP2 death is a major event that has arisen a catholic identity search in many people and this catholic weekly newspaper has found a great way to collect funds with it.

Via: Tanz mit mir
Also at: Spitting-Image

2005-02-11T18:29:00.000+01:00

Wanna play chess?

I just called back an old friend with whom I used to play mail games in the arcanum bbs times and I thought it would be nice to recover those mail matches (and to improve a bit my chess skills that can't be worse).

If anybody wants to play a chess game with me, just drop a comment, mail me or make the first move either here or here using game[AT]rsc112[DOT]tk as my address.

[Escuchando: Sunday Bloody Sunday - U2 - UNDER A BLOOD RED SKY (5:18)]

2005-02-11T16:23:00.000+01:00

It seems I chose a bad day to install Haloscan
Blogger seems to have reacted to the problems their previous comment system had and has changed it. Now you don't need to open a couple of pages to post a new comment and you can read both the original post and the comments other users have made on the same page you are going to write yours.

I've been trying it a bit and it is fast and, if that's not enough, good looking.

I'll keep Haloscan comment system anyways so you can choose.

[Escuchando: hot for teacher - van halen - 101Greatest Guitar Solos (4:44)]

2005-02-10T03:17:00.000+01:00

And Babel is one store higher
It's almost half a year since promised, but I'm glad to announce you the Spanish version of this weblog.

I will touch both templates soon, probably before the end of February, and I will also be porting the old translated posts to the bitácora gradually.

[Escuchando: el club de las primeras esposas - - el club de las primeras esposas - (1:29:04)]

2005-02-09T04:28:00.000+01:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Do I need to add anything?

I'll keep the blogger comment feature to backup Haloscan when they are one or two months old to avoid deletion.

2005-02-09T01:38:00.000+01:00

Recycling the disposable

I bet some of you have thought that those plastic/paper disposable cameras you bought that time you forgot your camera made really sharp photographs. You'll be glad to know that you can recycle them for further uses.

Take a look at Camera Hacker.

[Escuchando: jesus doesn't want me for a su - Nirvana - With the Lights Out (3:31)]

2005-02-09T00:28:00.000+01:00

Video tutorials
Have you ever felt stupid after watching one of those video tutorials that explain things in a way that seems so easy that it renders impossible for you to do the same?

Well, here's a video of a ~~Japanese~~ Taiwanese girl showing how to fold a t-shirt in less than a second. I had to repeat it four times before I folded it in the right way, but I think I'm gonna use this method from now on.

Via: moonlee.org

Edit: Here's another video that shows how to fold t-shirts and shirts step by step.

[Escuchando: Al Culo De Una Lombriz - Marea - 28000 Punaladas (3:47)]

2005-02-07T04:19:00.000+01:00

IceRocket Bookmarklets
So you want to integrate IceRocket Search to your weblog or site? Then you can use these bookmarklets.
Place the link wherever you want in your site and whenever you click it, a tiny popup will open asking you to introduce your search term and the results page will open.

Do you want to add a button search to any browser? Then grab the button of your choice to the bookmark toolbar/sidebar.

Give them a try, they are all at my IceRocket plugins for Opera page.

IceRocket Web SearchBookmarklet

IceRocket Weblog SearchBookmarklet

IceRocket Mobile Phone Pics SearchBookmarklet

IceRocket Friend SearchBookmarklet

IceRocket Image SearchBookmarklet

IceRocket News SearchBookmarklet

IceRocket Multi Media Search Bookmarklet

Enjoy!

[Escuchando: Another Brick In The Wall (Par - Korn - Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (7:09)]

2005-02-06T18:30:00.000+01:00

IceRocket and Opera

Following the tracks of the IceRocket QuickSearch plugins I made for Firefox some days ago, I have made some plugins and a Search Tab Panel for Opera/Netscape.

So if you are one of the 8% visitors that browse this weblog with Opera and want to integrate IceRocket Search to your browser, then go here and add the search pannel or install the plugin.

I have submitted the search plugins to the Opera Search Plugin Manager so you can also install the IceRocket Search Field or the IceRocket Custom Button Search from there.

The IceRocket Search sidebar can also be installed from Opera's panel site.

[Escuchando: Hardware Bus Security in Embed - Dan Matthews - The Fifth HOPE (1:00:28)]

2005-02-04T02:30:00.000+01:00

Student Suspended Over Suspected Use of PHP

One day people will use their brain before applying stupid rules.

Topeka, KS - High school sophomore Brett Tyson was suspended today after teachers learned he may be using PHP.

"A teacher overheard him say that he was using PHP, and as part of our Zero-Tolerance policy against drug use, he was immediately suspended. No questions asked," said Principal Clyde Thurlow. "We're not quite sure what PHP is, but we suspect it may be a derivative of PCP, or maybe a new designer drug like GHB."
Parents are frightened by the discovery of this new menace in their children's school, and are demanding the school do something. "We heard that he found out about PHP at school on the internet. There may even be a PHP web ring operating on school grounds," said irate parent Carol Blessing. "School is supposed to be teaching our kids how to read and write. Not about dangerous drugs like PHP."

In response to parental demands the school has reconfigured its internet WatchDog software to block access to all internet sites mentioning PHP. Officials say this should prevent any other students from falling prey like Brett Tyson did. They have also stepped up locker searches and brought in drug sniffing dogs.

Interviews with students suggested that PHP use is wide spread around the school, but is particularly concentrated in the geeky nerd population. When contacted by BBspot.com, Brett Tyson said, "I don't know what the hell is going on dude, but this suspension gives me more time for fraggin'. Yee haw!"

PHP is a hypertext preprocessor, which sounds very dangerous. It is believed that many users started by using Perl and moved on to the more powerful PHP. For more information on how to recognize if your child may be using PHP visit php.net.

Via: Frandt

[Escuchando: Tell Me Baby - Ray Charles - Kissing Her Now (2:37)]

2005-02-03T16:06:00.000+01:00

The World as far as I know it

No, the NODs are not losing the battle against GDI (forgive me this retro Command & Conquer comment). This World map show all the countries I've visited. So I only know 20 countries (a tiny 8% of the total).

It makes me think in my next trip, where should I go. Sugestions are welcome and, if the travel from Spain is cheap, encouraged.

Click on the map to create your own travel map.

Via: Micah World

[Escuchando: Dream On - Aerosmith - You Gotta Move (4:40)]

2005-02-03T01:32:00.000+01:00

IceRocket search plugins for Firefox updated
It no longer submits double queries. I have also writen a few more plugins for the rest of the search services Icerocket provides.

The complete plugin list is:

- IceRocket Web Search plugin
- IceRocket Multimedia Search Plugin
- IceRocket Image Search Plugin
- IceRocket News Search Plugin
- IceRocket Weblog Search Plugin
- IceRocket People Search Plugin

You can install them here:

One tip for all of you who haven't used IceRocket MultiMedia search. Search some song or artist and you'll see why I consider it the best multimedia search engine on the net right now.

[Escuchando: Animal Instinct (Live In Stock - The Cranberries - Stars (Ltd.Edition) - CD2 (0:-1)]

2005-02-02T08:23:00.000+01:00

IceRocket places a link to my Firefox plugin on their site

In a matter of minutes after published IceRocket has linked to the firefox plugin. If they are as eficient with all their tasks I guess they are going to go really far with this project.

Keep an eye on this search engine as it seems to be a fast growing project and they appear to be very motivated. This can make the SE battle a bit more interesting as it won't be just a fight between Google and the new MSN search.

[Escuchando: burn - matchbook romance (stories & alibis) 08 - (4:19)]

2005-02-02T07:00:00.000+01:00

Better than Google? Add IceRocket quicksearch to Mozilla Firefox

At least I think so. Not only it's extremely fast loading, has several search tabs (web, blogs, news, phone cam pics, images, multimedia, people), and displays as many results as Google, but it adds three features that make you save time when performing a search.

- Each search result comes with it's own snapshot, something that can give you a slight overview of the website.

- It's 'Quick View' feature allows you to browse the page while you are still in the search engine page. This a really clever idea as it allow you to check the rest of the results while the site loads if it's a heavy one. It's expandable, so we really have two different quick view links.

- It has a link to the Internet Archive so you can see how the information has changed in the site along the years.

The multimedia search is astonishing and so is the email a search, which allows you to submit searches to xxxx@icerocket.com (xxxx stands for search=web search, news=news search, pics=picture search) by sending a blank email with the query string as subject. The system responds almost inmediately sending you the answers to your mailbox. Others tried to do something similar, but sms cost money.

I have met lots of people who also love this browser but, as most of them are Mozilla Firefox users, they tend to have Google as main search engine because it's already implemented in Firefox quicksearch box while Icerocket isn't.

As I couldn't find the plugin at Mozdev site, I decided to write my own. It works flawlessly so I have already sent it to Mozdev and I hope it'll get listed there soon. Until then you can install it from my personal webspace:

Icerocket Extension for Mozilla Firefox

[Escuchando: I wanna be your dog - Sid Vicious - Vive le Rock Live (5:30)]

2005-02-01T02:40:00.000+01:00

Wishlist
First of all sorry for not updating the blog as often as I should, but my neck ache and exams don't let me stay too much time in front of the computer.

Well, I just post this to shake the dust of the weblog, but if any of you want you can send me one of the things listed here:

My Amazon wishlist

If you are stuck in a book store and don't remember which book I wanted then you can check it with your phone via WAP enabled Amazon wishlist

It'll be updated everytime I find something interesting.

[Escuchando: Ode To My Family (Live In Stoc - The Cranberries - Stars (Ltd.Edition) - CD2 (4:25)]

2005-01-24T20:43:00.000+01:00

Lemmings online
Why is it that I always find these games when I should be studying?

Take a look at it, it's a classic: Lemmings

[Escuchando: Rumors Of My Demise Have Been - Rise Against - Siren Song Of The Counter Cult (4:14)]

2005-01-21T03:54:00.000+01:00

The truth in Presidential Radio Address speeches
This post is not mine, in fact I only reproduce what I heard on January 18th in OffTheWall. Well, I downloaded the program to my Zen and heard it today.

They took two key Radio Adresses the Whitehouse broadcasted just before the invasion of Iraq began (I'm sure you remember them when you read their title) and deleted the lies he said in them, making them shorter but, at least, true.

I have just grabbed both editted speeches and upped them so you don't need to download the whole program to hear it. I also posted the full transcripts of both addresses and changed the font to red of all the lies he say. Press the '[+]' link to see it, it's impressing.

Index:
President's Radio Address concerning Iraq Weapons, March 22, 2003 - Audio stream
Hear the radio address without lies - redirection (Click on 'Download/show the hosted file')

President's Radio Address concerning the Beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, March 22, 2003 - Audio stream
Hear the radio address without lies - redirection (Click on 'Download/show the hosted file')

>> I bet the same could be done with a 80% of his Radio Adresses. I don't understand why there's still people out there who hesitate calling him and his crew of prevaricators.

President's Radio Address concerning Iraq Weapons, March 22, 2003 - Audio stream

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Powell briefed the United Nations Security Council on Iraq's illegal weapons program, its attempts to hide those weapons, and its links to terrorist groups.

The Iraqi regime's violations of Security Council Resolutions are evident, they are dangerous to America and the world, and they continue to this hour.

The regime has never accounted for a vast arsenal of deadly, biological and chemical weapons. To the contrary, the regime is pursuing an elaborate campaign to conceal its weapons materials and to hide or intimidate key experts and scientists. This effort of deception is directed from the highest levels of the Iraqi regime, including Saddam Hussein, his son, Iraq's vice president and the very official responsible for cooperating with inspectors.

The Iraqi regime has actively and secretly attempted to obtain equipment needed to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Firsthand witnesses have informed us that Iraq has at least seven mobile factories for the production of biological agents -- equipment mounted on trucks and rails to evade discovery.

The Iraqi regime has acquired and tested the means to deliver weapons of mass destruction. It has never accounted for thousands of bombs and shells capable of delivering chemical weapons. It is actively pursuing components for prohibited ballistic missiles. And we have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.

One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases.

We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad.

This is the situation as we find it -- 12 years after Saddam Hussein agreed to disarm and more than 90 days after the Security Council passed Resolution 1441 by a unanimous vote. Saddam Hussein was required to make a full declaration of his weapons programs. ~~He has not done so.~~ Saddam Hussein was required to fully cooperate in the disarmament of his regime. He has not done so. Saddam Hussein was given a final chance. He is throwing away that chance.

Having made its demands, the Security Council must not back down when those demands are defied and mocked by a dictator. The United States would welcome and support a new resolution making clear that the Security Council stands behinds its previous demands. ~~Yet, resolutions mean little without resolve. And the United States, along with a growing coalition of nations, will take whatever action is necessary to defend ourselves and disarm the Iraqi regime.~~

Thank you for listening.

President's Radio Address concerning the Beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, March 22, 2003 - Audio stream

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. American and coalition forces have begun a concerted campaign against the regime of Saddam Hussein. In this war, our coalition is broad, more than 40 countries from across the globe. Our cause is just, the security of the nations we serve and the peace of the world. And our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.

President George W. Bush meets with his war council at Camp David, Saturday morning, March 22, 2003. Present at the table are, from left, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard B. Myers, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Chief of Staff to the Vice President Lewis Libby, Chief of Staff Andy Card, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet, and Chief Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzalez. White House photo by Eric Draper The future of peace and the hopes of the Iraqi people now depend on our fighting forces in the Middle East. They are conducting themselves in the highest traditions of the American military. They are doing their job with skill and bravery, and with the finest of allies beside them. At every stage of this conflict the world will see both the power of our military, and the honorable and decent spirit of the men and women who serve.

In this conflict, American and coalition forces face enemies who have no regard for the conventions of war or rules of morality. Iraqi officials have placed troops and equipment in civilian areas, attempting to use innocent men, women and children as shields for the dictator's army. I want Americans and all the world to know that coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.

A campaign on harsh terrain in a vast country could be longer and more difficult than some have predicted. And helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable, and free country will require our sustained commitment. ~~Yet, whatever is required of us, we will carry out all the duties we have accepted.~~

Across America this weekend, the families of our military are praying that our men and women will return safely and soon. Millions of Americans are praying with them for the safety of their loved ones and for the protection of all the innocent. ~~Our entire nation appreciates the sacrifices made by military families,~~ and many citizens who live near military families are showing their support in practical ways, such as by helping with child care, or home repairs. ~~All families with loved ones serving in this war can know this: Our forces will be coming home as soon as their work is done.~~

Our nation entered this conflict reluctantly, yet with a clear and firm purpose. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. Now that conflict has come, the only way to limit its duration is to apply decisive force. This will not be a campaign of half-measures. It is a fight for the security of our nation and the peace of the world, and we will accept no outcome but victory.

Thank you for listening.

[Escuchando: Deshacer el mundo - Heroes del silencio - Para Siempre (5:23)]

2005-01-20T17:53:00.000+01:00

Good old movies
I know I'm supposed to be studying as I have exams in ten days, but I'm bored to the max and none of the movies/games I have around seem to be interesting enough, so I decided to take a look at the Internet Archive and I'm gonna to watch (again) 'Night of the Living Dead'. I know it's not as funny as the porn parody that appears in 'Double Feature!', but I'll spend some nice time watching a bit of outdated terror.

[Escuchando: Mirando al cielo - Fito & Fitipaldis - A puerta cerrada (4:12)]

2005-01-19T02:37:00.000+01:00

The Church approves the use of condom ... at least in Spain

The Spanish conference of bishops made public today, in a press conference right after the meeting with the Health Minister, their opinion about the use of condoms to stop the spreading of AIDS.

This oficial point of view is a slap in the face of the conservative sectors in the Vatican that still claim that condoms are not a good way of stopping AIDS.

Though unusual, it's not the first time catholic priests promote the use of condoms as the best tool to avoid the disease. In fact the Spanish Church has joined a group of institutions that already endorsed the abecedary (ABC -Abstain, Be faithful/reduce partners, use Condoms) on World AIDS Day that was published by 'The Lancet' one month before.

Read full news: in Spanish - translated by Babelfish

[Escuchando: Voy a pasarmelo bien - Hombres G - Peligrosamente Juntos (0:-1)]

2005-01-17T18:09:00.000+01:00

Mother at ... 67?

Doctors said a 66-year-old Romanian woman became the world's oldest woman recorded to give birth when she delivered a daughter by cesarean section. The child's twin sister was stillborn, they said.

Is it fair to bring a baby to life when you know that her mother won't probably live enough to see her grow up? I'm not talking about diseases or accidents, sometimes life can be cruel and steals the life of our parents earlier than we had wished, but in this case both the the mother and the father life expectancy is just a few years (Bulgaria's life expectancy is 70.5 years).

Full news: CNN

Posted at Spitting-Image too.

[Escuchando: Cd1 - Extremoduro - Gira 2002 DVD (44:56)]

2005-01-17T04:14:00.000+01:00

Alexander overdose

I went to the cinema yesterday night to watch this movie. The proyection room was huge, in fact one of the bigger ones I've ever watched a movie in and the screen was extremely big too. You might think that this could be the best place to see an action movie like this one, I thought the same, but things are seen different from the first row of seats.

I got tired of the three hour movie, I got tired of hearing Alex's decaffeinated conversations with his 'friend' Hephaistion, I got tired of the guys sitting inmediately behind me making gay jokes all over the movie, ... fuck, I even got tired of the 9 meters tall face of Angelina Jolie. In fact it is kinda scaring to see her beautiful eyes stare directly at you when they are bigger than you.

[Escuchando: Rats In The Cellar (Bonus) - Aerosmith - You Gotta Move (8:36)]

2005-01-17T03:30:00.000+01:00

So simple, so clever

It's difficult to gather the necesary amount of people to make it really noticeable on TV, but it would be a historical 'in your face' protest in case lots of people turned their backs when the presidential motorcade arrives to their location.

^{Action found in: Bouillabaisse}

[Escuchando: Galleguita (tango) - Carlos Nunez - Carlos Nunez & Amigos En Casa (3:23)]

2005-01-14T03:14:00.000+01:00

I agree with Creative

Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel the Apple guys have made a mistake launching their new iPod Shuffle (labeled as a tampon with buttons by several magazines). That's why I agree with everything this Creative CEO that openly talks about this new iPod.

Full interview here
Another source here. Thanks mmulibra for the link

Note: This is a pic of my Zen Touch, which I know isn't as snob as an iPod but it's cheaper, lighter and batteries run for several more hours.

[Escuchando: Ciudad De Los Gitanos - Marea - 28000 Punaladas (0:-1)]

2005-01-12T20:49:00.000+01:00

Weapon inspectors fly out of Iraq

It seems the US has finally accepted what everybody already knew: Sadam didn't have any weapons of massive destruction or was trying to make them when the country was invaded.

The US inspectors sent to the country to verify evidence of Iraq's WMD program have finished their two years search with no results.

Read the article on CNN
News excerpt in Spanish

>> If we still believe the coalition force that invaded Iraq began the war because of this fake proofs, shouldn't someone be held responsible for sending so many guys to death under false statements?

[Escuchando: Lágrimas de plástico azul - Joaquin Sabina - Dimelo en la calle (3:45)]

2005-01-12T14:55:00.000+01:00

The problem is underwater too

The first news I had about the devastation the tsunami caused in the underwater habitat was just one day after the tsunami when a TV station interviewed one Spanish survivor in his hospital bed at Phuket. He works, or used to work before the quake, as a scubba teacher at Khao Lak and he pointed out that the NGO's should also keep an eye to the damage the tsunami caused to the coral reefs that surround the coasts of the countries afected by the disaster as they where the mean of life of the inhabitants of these areas, either tourist or fishery dependant.

I must say that I stored it in some hidden place of my head and didn't think about it until Prentiss said something about it in his comment.

I have researched a bit more into the subject and have found what I expected, the studies say that the devastation caused to the underwater marine life can affect near shore fishery for decades, just the time the ocean floors will take to recover from the damage received and the diseases a massive alteration bring to an ecosystem.

According to this article it seems that the natural underwater walls coral reefs are have saved thousands of lives. Just another reason that should make us give a bit of our time to recover the lost underwater habitat.

More news: here

Note: As the ocean floor has changed significantly, global maps like sediment thickness or some maritime routes as several naval channels have completely changed.

Note2: I just heard a UNESCO report on the radio advising that some Han and Tang dinasty wreckages might have been lost or severely damaged. It's bad news for archeology too then.

[Escuchando: I wanna be your dog - Sid Vicious - Vive le Rock Live (3:10)]

2005-01-11T20:17:00.000+01:00

Remapping the Maldives

Historically, cartographers had problems to locate and correctly draw the Maldives until a century ago, and their hard work must be redone again.

The government has asked some cartographic organizations to help redrawing the more than 1200 islands the country has. According to the comments and photos some tiny islands lost several meters of shore, others disappeared under the water and a few of them even moved.

Reuter's press message in plain text
Full report with pictures - Translated by Google

Satellital images of the tsunami's effects in other countries.

Edit: seeking for info about the now sunk islands I have found that some of them, like the Hulhumale, were refloated some years ago. Take a look at it here.

[Escuchando: Armagideon Tenoreko Aztarnak - Fermin Muguruza - Kontrabanda (0:-1)]

2005-01-10T18:22:00.000+01:00

1625 euros
Some friends and I have saved a few euros this Christmas to help the NGOs and NPOs that have moved to South East Asia to provide help to the tsunami victims. Most of the money will go tomorrow to the Spanish Red Cross and Medicos Sin Fronteras accounts, the rest will be sent to smaller organizations.

It's not a great amount of money, but most of us are still studying so we don't have too much money.

[Escuchando: Jamas - Reincidentes - Acustico (4:07)]

How to get rid of 500 million grapes in only 12 seconds?

2004-12-31T22:20:00.000+01:00

Just come to Spain on December 31st. Everybody will have 12 grapes in their hands waiting for the 12 gongs that announce the comming of a new year.

So 500.000.000 grapes will be eated in a lapse of 12 seconds.

Happy 2005

2004-12-31T13:08:00.000+01:00

I don't know your opinion about the year that is about to finish, but I find I has been a bad year. I hope 2005 doesn't bring us any of these:

- Earthquakes like those in Iran and South east Asia
- Floodings and revolts in places like Haiti
- Invasions of sovereign countries (aka Iraq)
- Genocides we have almost no news about (aka Congo)
- Reelection of politicians that have rendered to put the rest of the World under a great risk (there's no need to say who am I talking about)
- Terrorist attacks that kill hundreds of innocents (remember Beslan, Madrid, asablanca, ...)
- State terrorist attacks that kill hundreds of people (remember Fallujah, Colombia, Palestine, ...)

I could continue with the list, but I don't want to be sad in a day that should be happy for everybody.

Best wishes for all of you, specially for those that are far from home and helping others as only you can do.

The torture of snow in Spain

2004-12-29T17:48:00.000+01:00

Yes, we had another white Christmas day here in Spain. It snowed almost one meter in the town where I live, but the problem is that, although it hasn't snowed again since December 26th, most of the streets are still unpracticable.

I guess the next WRC champion will be Spanish next year as we are getting quite used to drive over twenty centimeters thick ice.

When help is needed but... what can I do?

2004-12-29T17:05:00.000+01:00

The destruction the earthquakes and tsunamis caused all around the Indian Ocean cannot be compared with anything caused by the hands of men, though I'm pretty sure some governments would love to develop a weapon with such a destructive power as this tsunamis. A friend's sister who lives in Tanzania just told me that the big waves already got to the Tanzanian coast killing a dozen of people. Nothing compared to the thousands of victims in Indonesia or Thailand but the distance between the South Eastern Asia and Tanzania can give us an idea of the power of the quake.

As always, these catastrofic events also take the best from ourselves. Several emergency crews and firemen rescue teams that left their homes worldwide a few hours after the quake to provide some help. Pedro and Mikel are two firemen friends that headed to Sri Lanka (I wish you the best of the lucks as that woill mean that you help has been useful). The international communit has bega to send humanitarian shipments and funds for the local authorities to buy first need goods in their home markets

If you want more information about the desaster or want to help and don't know how, take a look at the SEA-EAT blog and here you have a compilation of some NGOs that are currently helping and need support.

2004-12-22T17:19:00.000+01:00

How would you feel if...
your elected representants in your country's parliament didn't get up to go to work because they had a Christmas dinner the night before? I bet most of them were under the shower trying to bypass the hangover.

I would feel ashamed if I were one of these (all of them from right wing parties by the way) lazy public workers but I know none of them will as they are used to act in this irrespectful way.

Full report: here - in Spanish only, sorry

Ps: I wonder if I can demand them so they are forced to return today's salary to the public funds as they didn't earn the money.

[Escuchando: Con La Camisa Rota - Marea - 28000 Punaladas (4:46)]

2004-12-22T07:49:00.000+01:00

Thumbs up for Morocco

In the same line as Chile did a few days ago, Morocco is holding the hearings of 200 victims of institutional tortures during the rule of Hassan II. They are going to be aired live.

I wonder if any of these or these will ever have their opportunity to have the abuses they suffered recognized.

Full report: Morocco Times
Also published in: Spitting-Image

[Escuchando: si tu quisieras - pedro guerra - bolsillos (2:27)]

2004-12-22T06:39:00.000+01:00

1.801.800.000 euros

That's the reason why almost every Spanish will keep an ear on the radio while they are at work today. Everybody spends some money in the Spanish Christmas Lottery (around 63 euros per Spanish), a special lottery that takes place each December 22nd and that's 193 years old.

It'd be great to get some of that 390.000.000 euros main prize, wouldn't it? Good luck to all the players.

2004-12-15T20:13:00.000+01:00

Walking on the red light

Antwerp or Amsterdam, same lightning, same content.

[Escuchando: Trae Pa'k Esa Yerba Buena - - Trae Pa'k Esa Yerba Buena - (219secs)]

2004-12-15T19:57:00.000+01:00

Time to pay? At least time for history books to remember him as a mass killer.

[Escuchando: Resident.Evil.Apocalypse.DVDScr.KiNEPOLiS - - Resident.Evil.Apocalypse.DVDScr.KiNEPOLiS - (1:33:36)]

2004-12-03T17:29:00.000+01:00

Google loves Blogger

It's well known that spammers and some link-whores do whatever is in their hands to get listed in a good place in search engines. They began using keyword lists created with keyword generators, some of them specially designed to get more revenue with Google's Adsense service, spammed usenet newsgroups, forums, guestbooks and mail lists with links to their site, used wiki boards to link to their website, spammed weblog comments and now they are creating blogs like this one whose only purpose is to make the spammers web get high ranked when people do a search in Google. I have come across several weblogs like this one this past week.

I thought Google no longer updated pagerank, but I might be wrong.

[Escuchando: Lecho De Rosas - Revolver - Mestizo (4:23)]

2004-12-03T08:06:00.000+01:00

Rain, or the proof that humans are stupid when wet
Studies have proofed that the suicide rates increase during rainy days, but I would go further. Rain affects people i some way that it makes them definitely stupid.

I have asumed that going out without getting fed up at people is impossible. If you use your car to move around the town you soon realize that drivers seem to have forgotten how to drive. They slow down, step the break unexpectedly when there's no need to do so and the time drivers take to speed up in traffic lights increases a hundred per cent. Things are not better if you take a walk under the rainfall as the coordination between the hand that holds the umbrella and the rest of the body of the person that carries it, this can be even dangerous as sometimes the umbrellas seem to come directly to hit your face.

I wonder what the reason for this behaviour can be, maybe, like some machines, men are not supposed to run in high humidity environements? I don't know.

[Escuchando: Amarga Habitacion - Reincidentes - Acustico (3:11)]

2004-12-02T05:46:00.000+01:00

MSN steps on the weblogging wagon

At least thats what their new, at least for me, service MSN Spaces seems to be. I've been browsing some of these, most of them newborn, and I must say that, although I find that integrating all MSN services (email, groups, messenger, search engine, news and weblog) related under one account it's as extremely slow as some other MSN services like Hotmail.

At first sight each space includes a weblog with comment feature, photoblog, Rss 2.0 syndication, music list (links to msn music store) and a 'list' section that allows users to create custom lists.

I personally don't like it very much, so I won't sign up, but I will keep an eye on it to see how it evolves.

[Escuchando: Han Caido Los Dos - Mikel Erentxun - Arde La Calle Un Tributo A Rad (5:10)]

2004-12-01T18:41:00.000+01:00

World AIDS Day

Today we can see red ribbons eveywhere, TV and radio stations are talking about it but, don't you think it would be better if media talked a bit about HIV daily instead of talking a whole day about it?

Although some people believe that HIV/AIDS is quite controlled in western countries and treatment has transformed it from a deadly disease to a chronic one, it is still spreading specially in some countries, so we must be responsible and try to minimize the risks of being infected/infect others with the virus.

You can visit the National AIDS Trust or AIDS.org to learn more about this XX-XXI century plague. To find ways to support the fight against AIDS, visit the World AIDS Day to see the initiatives and events that are taking place worldwide todayto show your support for World AIDS day or take this test to check your knowlegde about AIDS.

On the other hand, if you want to get disinformed read what the Vatican says about condoms and AIDS. I wonder if they know the harm they are doing to thousands of believers worldwide with this. Fortunately there are lots of priests and misionaries that disdain these stupid statements and try to extend the use of condoms in their communities.

Post also published in Spitting-Image

[Escuchando: Deltoya - Extremoduro - Grandes Exitos Y Fracasos (Epi (5:32)]

2004-11-30T21:48:00.000+01:00

Pawur, Tasin, Paula, Inzae, Anzae, ...

The same worm under different names. I'm pretty sure non-Spanish readers never heard of it, but this worm is spreading wildly in Spanish spoken countries. This worm in particular deletes all office docs, mp3, image files, source code files such as vbs, c or cpp, ... and resends itself using a built-in smtp server that sends the worm to the infected user's contact list.

You might be wondering why do I talk about it when each day different worms and viruses appear. Some computer users don't care if they are infected or not until the computer crashes and then they only try to recover their files and format the hard disk. The problem comes when these users see their documents deleted or their music folders empty, then they call someone to see if they can recover those files.

Well, I've been messing around with 30 infected computers since past wednesday and as none of the removal tools worked as I wanted and I'm tired of searching the keys in the registry and worm files to manually delete them, I have written a tiny script that locates and deletes the files Pawur creates and deletes them as well as the registry values it adds to the registry.

Download the Pawur removal tool here.

Note: It currently works with the four known versions of the worm (A/D).
The script will only work in WinNT4, Win2K or WinXp machines, you will need the external tool reg.exe from a Windows Reskit te get it run in a Win9x/Me box.
Although the script shouldn't compromise your system in any way I am not responsible of any harm your computer/software could suffer.
Source available on request.

[Escuchando: Lecho De Rosas - Revolver - Mestizo (4:23)]

2004-11-26T03:01:00.000+01:00

Maybe they played too many videogames
Things that happen when you give weapons to a bunch of inmature guys.
Play video (2.5Mb WMV file)
Via: Drunken Delight

[Escuchando: We Luv Deez Hoez (Feat Goodie - Outkast - Stankonia (RETAIL) (4:10)]

2004-11-24T21:57:00.000+01:00

Applause for the British

It seems that a coalition of organizations and governments leaded by the UK government will pre-buy millions of the malaria vaccine the Spanish researcher Pedro Alonso is evaluating for GSK ensuring with it it's distribution in third world countries that suffer this disease.

The government would offer to buy enough malaria vaccine to immunize 873 million people for HIV/AIDS, 642 million people for malaria, and 1,534 million people for tuberculosis in covered countries over ten years. The commitment would be backed by a legally binding contract. In the base case scenario, 2643 million DALYs would be saved for HIV/AIDS, 1,114 million DALYs would be saved for malaria, and 983 million DALYs would be saved for tuberculosis. (This is equivalent to 89 million lives for HIV/AIDS, 37 million for malaria, and 33 million lives for tuberculosis.)

This is by far a better way of erradicating malaria than previous campaigns.

Full report
@ - Translated by Google

[Escuchando: Dejame - Los Secretos - Ojos de Perdida (2:40)]

2004-11-11T03:26:00.000+01:00

Ironies of life

This photograph taken through a police bus window shows an African woman that came to Spain in a small boat with another 37 people (six pregnant women and three babies) and was arrested before disembarking.

Background: Each day dozens of immigrants try to arrive to the coast of Spain in small and overcrowded ships that most of the times are intercepted by the Police or, unfortunately, wreck down a few miles from the coast.

For all you non-Spanish readers that don't get the irony in this picture, "salida de socorro" means "emergency exit" and that trip to the Police Station will probably be the beginning of a new life in Europe for that woman as most of south/central African countries illegal immigrants cannot be sent back to their homeland as they come here with no passport or their countries don't accept them back. So this woman has escaped her old life using the emergency exit. The new life as illegal immigrant won't be easy, at least at first, but it is a new oportunity for her at least.

Good luck!

[Viendo: Mar.Adentro.DVDRip - - Mar.Adentro.DVDRip - (2:00:45)]

2004-11-09T18:23:00.000+01:00

Fifteen years ago...

Although the Wall is only a bunch of souvenirs spreaded through the World and a few meters long memorial, in November' 89 Germans broke the wall that not only divided Berlin but the whole Europe. It was the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Iron Curtain.

If nobody discuss that Germany is better unite, why do people still believe that a Wall can do some good in other countries?

APTN clipreel of the Fall
Altavista's video search for Berlin Wall.
Short video explaining the falling

[Escuchando: The Long Day Is Over - Norah Jones - Come Away With Me CDA (2:44)]

2004-11-09T05:22:00.000+01:00

Something's wrong when a hospital becomes a military target
I have tried hard to keep uninformed all this week, I took special care to read/watch/hear as few international news as I could. I thought that keeping myself ignorant of the World's happenings would clean my mind making it easy to understand why so many people support two things I cannot understand:
- Bush reelection
-The invasion of Iraq

I think I'm almost in understanding (note that I said understand and not share) why 59054087 USA Americans gave GWB a new opportunity to fix the mess he has involved the USA in. Fear and a 'someone to believe in' feelings have given him more votes than his own campaign ads.

I haven't found the slightest reason to support what 'the coalition' troops are doing in Iraq. I was beginning to think that those voters don't support the war but they don't really care about it (watching only TV series and sports can easily make you feel nothing about everything) but when I opened the afternoon's newspaper today and read that the first military action USA Army took today in Fallujah's raid was invading town's hospital. It inmediately reminded me some actions taken in Chechnya by terrorists against hospitals or the Israeli attacks against ambulances. I remember the USA already bombed at least another two hospitals in the Gulf war and in Afghanistan, in both cases the USA Army either denied it or said it was an error.

The fact that the USA admitted the invasion of the town's hospital as the first stage to the raid proves that the USA no longer respects the rules of war. Will massive and indiscriminate WWII style bombings be the next? Oh, wait. They are already doing it.

Read full story: MSNBC - Thousands of U.S. troops enter Fallujah

[Escuchando: El.Exorcista.El.Comienzo.Spanish.CVCD.Screener.WwW.EliteVcd.CoM.By.EVCDGroup - - El.Exorcista.El.Comienzo.Spanish.CVCD.Screener.WwW.EliteVcd.CoM.By.EVCDGroup - (1:45:29)]

2004-10-29T05:18:00.000+02:00

Help, someone poisoned me
Let me start with the symptoms: nausea, stomach ache, bad taste and hyper salivation. At least I haven't puked yet.

A few hours ago I went out with some friends, in about three hours we drunk two litres of kalimotxo while eating some supper (it has similar alcoholc like beer) in common (that means that I drank around half a litre in those three hours). I explain this trying to avoid comments saying that I'm drunk.
After that we went to a pub after all that and my mate went to the waitress to get the drinks. I had, as usual, a Tanqueray with Kas citron (Tanqueray is a brand of gin and Kas is a lemmon taste soft drink from Pepsi). I was a bit surprised when I got my drink as it was slightly orange and my gin is transparent and Kas is clear yellow, so, as I saw the waitress pour the 'gin' from the distance, I thought the waitress served me orange Kas instead of citron, the problem came when I tasted it. I am sure it was not Tanqueray or any other gin I've ever drunk, it didn't taste like rum, whisky, vodka, tequila, martini or any other spirit I know. It just tasted and smelled strange, but not bad. I could feel the alcohol effluvia when drinking it, but I couldn't recognise it.

We didn't stay too much in the pub and a few minutes after leaving I began with the symptoms described above. I inmediatly knew what happened: I had been poisoned. They didn't use rat poison or cianide, but some spirit they used to refill the bottles. Unfortunately refilling bottles with cheaper spirit is quite common in some pubs and discos in Spain and it even has a name, 'garrafón', and many people suffer its effects each weekend.

I think I'm going to try to sleep a bit, if I can.

[Escuchando: sindrome de altamira - pedro guerra - bolsillos (2:49)]

Update: Thanks to all the people that have mailed me or post a comment about my health, I'll try to answer personally to each one. I'm ok and I'm sorry I didn't update the blog before, but I've spent most of the week resting a bit.
According to the mail you sent me, refilling spirit bottles is quite common in France and the UK too.

2004-10-26T08:55:00.000+02:00

Yahoo's PayDirect dies in favour of PayPal

It seems Yahoo's bet in the online banking world has come to an end. I don't know why my mail filter flagged Yahoo's advise mail as spam, so I've just read it their home page.

Here's an excerpt:

We regret to notify you that we are closing the Yahoo! PayDirect from HSBC service, effective November 22, 2004.
You may continue to use your current PayDirect account until November 22, but you will not be able to open any new accounts, nor will you be able to send money to or receive money from a person who is not currently a PayDirect customer. After November 22, 2004, you will not be able to use your account for any new transactions. 'Send money' transactions initiated prior to November 22 will be completed if recipients accept funds within 30 days after send date; thereafter transactions will be canceled. You can still view your account records and withdraw any pending balances until February 15, 2005. After February 15, you can only access your PayDirect account to review past transactions and/or close your account.
The PayDirect service and web site will be completely discontinued on May 15, 2005.

I must say that I have only used their service twice, so it's not a big problem for me, but I wonder what will happen with the personal data they collected about users when they discontinue the service. I suggest every PayDirect user to delete their account using the Yahoo user deletion page so HSBC can't use their data after they discontinue providing the service.

[Escuchando: life vest under your seat - pedro guerra - bolsillos (2:44)]

2004-10-25T21:20:00.000+02:00

Car accident witness

As I've spent several hours on the road lately, I have seen a bunch of accidents that happened just in front of my car (last of them occured this afternoon). Being a witness in these accidents I've been thinking all day in placing an on board digital camera like the ones police cars use in the US (although less sophisticated). I'm sure it would help a lot the police and insurance companies to see how the accident took place.

So now I'm facing a couple of problems. First of them is that I don't know if it's legal or not permanetly recording what happens in front of your car, so I'll have to take a look at the local privacy and image laws. Second, I don't currently have a digital video camera that can store at least a couple of hours (the average time I spend on the road) and I don't want to buy anything more expensive than my old car nor anything huge, so I'll have to seek a bit for a cheap one. Suggestions are welcome.

Ps: When I was searching Google Images for policecar camera pics to place in the post I got a disgusting surprise. I thought those sites (I don't mean common pornographic or bondage sites but this raping like sites) were filtered by Google, but I see they aren't.
Photo via:

[Escuchando: Corazon De Tiza - Las Niñas - Arde La Calle Un Tributo A Rad (3:10)]

2004-10-22T03:45:00.000+02:00

Creating Gardfield's cartoons from a .gov

I don't know why a .gov site hosts something like that, but I really don't care.
Try it.

[Escuchando: Ahí Estás Tú - Chambao - Endorfinas en la mente (5:29)]

Edit: It seems I have found the reason. It seems to be the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research and I must say that it's a great idea to concern children to sleep in the right way using cartoons as a tool. Check all the other games and animations they have in the site.
They even have a wallpapers section.

2004-10-21T03:30:00.000+02:00

Video compilation of the US Presidential Election 2004

Welcome to the Election 2004 video archive. We are a non-partisan public resource for sharing video materials related to the 2004 United States Presidential Election. We welcome submissions from official candidates and their campaigns, journalists, students, and anyone with video materials related to the upcoming Presidential Election.

For example, do you want to see the second debate between Bush and Kerry? Then click here

Among all the videos in there I've found something funny. It's called George W. Vader (special edition)

[Escuchando: kREMA - Las.Cronicas.De.Riddick - (1:48:48)]

2004-10-20T18:59:00.000+02:00

Something's wrong when Iran wants Bush reelection

Why would a muslim theocratic state that has been and is a declared enemy of the US would support an ultra-christian, anti-muslim, ultra-conservative, and pro-war president like GW Bush?

What does your enemy always want for you? The worst.
Think about it.

Read more:

[Escuchando: Newroz - Fermin Muguruza - Kontrabanda (4:16)]

[Escuchando: Armagideon Tenoreko Aztarnak - Fermin Muguruza - Kontrabanda (4:27)]

2004-10-19T18:27:00.000+02:00

When the commies vote Republican...

I know Russia is no longer the old USSR, but it's surprising to hear the Russian president ask the Americans to vote for Bush.

I wonder what could have made V Putin have such a great opinion about GWB.
- Maybe the fact that both of them started illegal wars after bloody terrorist attacks in their homeland.
- Maybe the fact that both of them have links with oil companies makes them understand themselves.
- Maybe the fact that fraud has been alleged in both the presidential elections they won has something to do with it (Russia/USA).

- Maybe the fact that both of them are using terrorism war as a mean to cut liberties to their own citizens also helped
....

Don't you see too many coincidences between them?

2004-10-19T18:13:00.000+02:00

I'm not a visionary but I already knew Florida would have problems with the new e-voting system.
Read the full NYT article here

2004-10-18T12:59:00.000+02:00

No words. I don't know what would I do if a girl ever makes me sign something like this.

2004-10-18T12:25:00.000+02:00

Blogging, the doggy style
As you know the blogsphere is full of strange weblogs written by even more strange bloggers. But today I found Tucker's blog, which is the first one I see to show us a dog's thoughts.
Nice idea and, like all the weblogs hosted at iuplog is clean, fast and easy to read.

2004-10-14T17:29:00.000+02:00

Optimizing content search in our own computer using, of course, Google

It's name is Google Desktop and it's a small extension for Google Search Engine that lets us do searches in our mailbox (Outlook / Outlook Express), AIM conversations, cached webs in the default Web browser, plain text files and MS Office documents from the web browser.

It would be useful if it could make searches among msn messenger/icq, irc log files and Gmail inbox. Anyways, give it a try.

2004-10-14T13:45:00.000+02:00

Skinning Gmail
Gmail users keep on developing unofficial tricks and tools to make the use of Gmail even more confortab. There's a step by step skinning guide in persistent.nfo that will allow us to change its appearance. So you'll have your personalized Gmail Inbox screen each time you connect.

Via: Joe Grossberg

2004-10-08T03:05:00.000+02:00

Bush as a mediatic icon
I doubt Yahoo Groups publicity (you know, the 'Do you Yahoo?' one) gathered as many people in groups as GWB has done. Let me explain.

Doing a search in any search engine for the words 'against Bush' give out more than half a million results, which are, in most cases groups of people that have joined to express their disagreement against the current US president and ask voters not to reelect him.

If you take five minutes of your time and randomly browse some of the results you conclude that it's impossible to clasify them as democrats or republicans (they call themselves Republicans against stupidity), they can be women, babes, erotic models, a group of knitters or children that cannot vote yet.

After reading some of these comments I get the idea that not only Americans are against Bush but most of the World is and, among them, some people named Bush too.

But probably, the most important anti-bush movements that have grown on the World Wide Web are the ones related to music like Rock against Bush, bands against Bush or Musicians to Oust Bush.

It's curious that a similar search for 'against kerry' only gives out a hundred thousand results that are reduced to catholics and veterans asociations against Kerry.

2004-10-01T18:06:00.000+02:00

Try to guess what these numbers mean

2004-09-30T14:32:00.000+02:00

No more "bandwith exceeded" messages
As I've been quite disconected from the world for some time I'm getting lots of "Monthly Bandwith exceeded" messages, specially when trying to get a video. So I've decided to make a comment about a couple of handy and free online services that will free a lot of our upstream using them as cache.

The first of them is Coral, a project developed by the NYU Secure Computer Systems

To use CoralCDN, a content publisher---or someone posting a link to a high-traffic portal---simply appends .nyud.net:8090 to the hostname in a URL. Through DNS redirection, oblivious clients with unmodified web browsers are transparently redirected to nearby Coral web caches. These caches cooperate to transfer data from nearby peers whenever possible, minimizing both the load on the origin web server and the end-to-end latency experienced by browsers

Do you still wonder how can you -as webmaster- can use this service to save some of your bandwith using these services? It's easy, you just have to place the 'cached' link as a primary download site and the original link as secondary.

Example of download links using Coral:

Primary download: http://streamreal.org.nyud.net:8090/stream/w004-mamaseznowar.mov
Secondary download: http://streamreal.org/stream/w004-mamaseznowar.mov

Notice that I only had to add that string in red after the servers url (not at the end).

Another service you can use is Freecache, a project developed by The Internet Archive. For the final user it works as Coral although it's slightly different.

To create a Freecache link you only have to add http://freecache.org/ at the beginning of your link.

You must notice that Freecache service is often down, but don't worry because when it's down it redirects the connection to the original link.

2004-09-29T16:53:00.000+02:00

Creative boards to express our opinion

Americans have a nice protest weapon undercovered as mail stamps. Photo-Stamps is a company that allows you to create real stamps using whatever image you want (except porno pics), I wonder how many people will use this system as a weapon to show they're disagreement with the system.
I hope it will someday arrive to Spain. Until then we will have to keep on making our own or writing messages in banknotes.

2004-09-29T04:19:00.000+02:00

Cameraman kiled by US tank has been oficially labeled as a "victim of terrorism"

Jose Couso Cameraman Telecinco was killed in Baghdad when a U.S. tank fired a shell at the media hotel where they were working, April 8, 2003. Credited Spanish and foreign journalists in the place of the facts have contradicted the version of the Pentagon, that has justified the action by the presence of snipers in the high part of the building.

The U.S.A. has shell of artillery the hotel in which they lodge most of the international journalists who cover the information with the war in Iraq. The camera of Tele 5 Jose Couso and the Ucranian camera of Reuters Taras Protsyuk have died. Other three journalists of this agency have been hurt.

Quoted from: Fotoartmagazine

Well, it seems the young Spanish government has declared this journalist 'victim of terrorism'. This will allow his family to get economic aid from the government. Maybe the first step to consider this murder as an American State Terrorist attack. I hope so.
Via: El Mundo

2004-09-29T03:30:00.000+02:00

When lasagna looks like CNN's stats

I haven't check the blog for a while, so I didn't notice the Blogger navbar that now appears on top, so I've been playing a bit with it and have landed in the most strange recipe web I've ever browsed. It's called Cooking for Engineers and explains several recipes in an eye-catching way that makes recipes even easier to remember.
Give it a try.

2004-09-29T02:53:00.000+02:00

Back to life
Hi rss readers, as I suppose you will be the first to know the blog is online again.
I write this after a long summer that I hope you've enjoyed as much as I've done so, for those who are reading this: hi again

Accidental holidays

2004-07-15T17:53:00.000+02:00

Hi everybody. I log on to tell you that this weblog is not going to be updated as frequently as it was before as I've been forced to take some long term vacations.

I encourage you to syndicate to the blog so you'll know when it's updated without having to load the whole page.

Thank you also for the mails of support I've received.

2004-06-25T22:53:00.000+02:00

Gmail for Mac and more
This article might be interesting for those of you that come to this site by the hand of Spymac and other Macintosh users.
I have writen some articles about Gmail in this blog and outside, but each and every of them have been PC focused. The tips or apps I showed only worked under Windows or Linux environements, and I'm pretty sure that no Mac user is going to check his mail with a virtual machine, so here there are some apps for the 15% of Mac users that visit this page daily.
Importing contacts from MacOSX address book

You need to export the contacts comma separated using this tool to a .csv file.
Then you have to open Camino 0.7 (it doesn't work for Safari), login to your Gmail account and open the contacts window, you'll see the option to import contacts so open your .csv file and .... that's it. Easy, isn't it?
Via: BeatnikPad
Edit: It seems it also works in Netscape under Solaris: Link

Do you remember Gtray? The Gmail message counter for Windows XP seems to have a Mac clone called GCount. It seems it doesn't show more than 100 messages, but I'm sure they'll fix it in the next version.

I talked before about Gmailto, the tool that lets us associate mailto links to Gmail. Well, it also has a Mac version here

Safari users might find more interesting dragging this link to the bookmarks toolbar and pressing it just before they want to click on a mailto link. You can find more info in since1968

For those of you that use Mozilla and want to use the mailto feature with Gmail but only when you want or if you don't want to isntall a thing in your computer, you only need to drag this link to your bookmark toolbar and press it whenever you're going to send an email. You can find more info and the source in Plutor.org.
You can also install this extension to your Firefox 0.9 if you prefer to have a context menu link that opens a Gmail compose window when clicking a mailto: link. Jed Brown is it's writer.
Thanks: Carlos for this script and it's homepage

You need to check the 'don't ask me the login info again in two weeks' thing when using any of the Gmailto versions

I also wrote about GML, a command line tool that let us import our mailbox into Gmail and I also pointed out a tiny GUI for it writen in .NET (the text in red). Well, now I' proud to show you gExodus, a program that works like GML, with a GUI and writen in python, so it'll be less memory sucker than the other GUI.
Edit: There's a new version of GML that comes with a nice graphical interface, you can get it here

[Listening: New Killer Star - David Bowie - Reality (DVD) (4:58)]

2004-06-23T01:50:00.000+02:00

Automatic translation

Last night I took a look at the referrers from where you get to the weblog and I have found an increasing number of connections from online translation services, so I've decided to include a shortcut to Altavista's translation script at the botom of the sidebar.
Now you can browse the full weblog or each of the articles translated into Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Italian, French, Portuguese and Japanese easily, instalntly and free.

[Listening: If I Ain't Got You (Remix) (In - Alicia Keys - If I aint got you (VLS) (3:28)]